Thursday, August 18, 2016

A Bright Spot

Hey, Hey, Giants come out on top of a weird game, 10 - 7 over the New York Mets.   Madison Bumgarner facing off against Jacob deGrom.  That promised to be a low scoring pitching duel between two of the games top aces.  Madbum and deGrom both lasted only 5 innings.  Madbum gave up 4 runs on a grand slam, deGrom gave up 8 runs.  Has Madison ever given up a grand slam before?  I don't remember it.  It was the worst outing in deGrom's career.  Madbum struck out 6 and walked 3, gave up 6 hits and threw 89 pitches.  He got 2 of those runs back, home run number 3 for him on the year off of deGrom with 1 runner on.  Good thing, too, because after the Giants went up 8 - 4 at the end of 5, the Mets charged back with a 3 run 6th.  Gearrin, just back from rehabbing, gave up 2, Smith 1.  Then Law, Lopez, Romo and Casilla held the Mets.  Matt Cain was put on the DL to make room for Gearrin.  Giants tacked on 2 in the bottom of the 8th on a Buster Posey double for a final of 10 - 7.   3 rbi on 4 hits for Nunez, 3 hits for Span and 3 for Crawford, 2 for Pence, 2 for Posey, and hits for Panik, Pagan and Madbum.  I like being able to type a lot of names when listing guys who got hits.  17 total for the Giants.  To sweeten the deal, LA lost to the Phils so the Giants (who should have never have been in this position) gain a game.  And I get to use my favorite label.

How about those Olympics, huh?  Even if you accept the premise that athletic talent is randomly distributed, which you may not, athletic talent alone doesn't let you compete at an elite level.  You need training, coaching, nutrition, facilities, good PED's; and all of that takes money.  So I spent the afternoon doing division so that I could have some numbers to post that weren't associated with an L.  The following is a list of medals divided by GDP in billions of US dollars (x 1,000,000).

Azerbaijan           285.7
Kazakhstan          120.7
Hungary               119.7
New Zealand        82.8
Denmark               39.7
Russia                   37.9
Australia               22.5
Netherlands           19.7
Great Britain         14.7
South Korea          12.9
Italy                       12.4
Canada                  10.3
France                     9.6
Germany                 9.2
Brazil                      9.1
Japan                       8.2
US                           5.1
China                      5.1

You can't compute North Korea's numbers, although they have won 7 medals, as they have apparently no GDP.  Did you know Vietnam won 2 medals (shooting)?  Algeria and Quatar both won medals track and field, as did the Bahamas.  Fiji won a medal in rugby.  Did you know rugby was an Olympic sport?  Hard to tell if you watch NBC.  The Dominican Republic won a medal in taekwondo.   You know who the real Olympic heros are in this table?  The independent, or refugee athletes, who have won 2 medals.  No GDP or even anyone to cheer them at home.  Or home.


5 comments:

nomisnala said...

We beat, and beat up on Strassburg, Fernandez and Degrom, yet we face some pitchers with ERA's around 5. who have been beaten up by so many teams in multiple outings, and these guys shut the giants down. Giants hit fairly well against these 3 studs, and yet they seem rather schizophrenic in when they are able to hit well, or pitch well. Lets hope the giants can reverse their slide, and put some heat on the bums, pass them, and never have to look back as we can hold up first place, and get into the playoffs, without having to worry about the wildcard game. Let the bums worry about that game.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Wow. I turned it off after the slam. Way to go, Giants!

Ron said...

After watching the Olympics for a while (I forgot that we even had a game on Thursday & was expecting the Phillies to hand LA another win, so I was just avoiding baseball), I tuned in, when it was 8-4, watched the Mets get back to 8-7. I left to pray for a while (actually to do a couple of chores like brushing my teeth while praying that the bullpen could get through the 8th), then returned to see Posey's 2-run 2B & the bottom of the 9th.

What a refreshing surprise, but our starting pitching is a bit of a shambles right now, so that has me very worried. We've spent a lot of time dumping on our bullpen over the last few months, but, when 3 of our starters can't make it out of the 5th inning, & the effectiveness of the other 2 has dipped, too, there is a lot of stress on the bullpen. They are covering far too many innings, & that isn't sustainable.

I really want to believe that Pence & Posey are coming out of their run production slumps, so that helps, as long as hitters like Pagan, Belt, & Crawford stay productive.

Zo said...

Ron - I've known you for a long time, had no idea you were so religious.

Ron said...

The erratic performance of the 2016 SF Giants has necessitated unprecedented & unorthodox measures.